Summer Reading 08
 

I always love the "what are you reading thread" when it pops up so I figured I'd start a new one for Summer 08 since I need some books and this list is a good source.

Just finished "The Paradox of Choice, Why Less is More", very good book, apropos for people on this forum with the voluntary simplicity of single speeds and fixed gears. Basic premise- sometimes the sheer amount of choice we have leads to less satisfaction as we try to maximize our decisions in an ever expanding world of choices. Not particularly sophisticated, I think he could have gone deeper and been a little more critical of post-industrial capitalism and it's implications, but a good read nonetheless.

Also recently finished Out by Natsuo Kirino, good page turner with some murder and Japanese gangster stuff (I'm sucker for anything Japanese) but pretty mediocre overall. Good enough writing but nothing special. Not bad for the beach or an airplane trip.

I think it may only be possible to read on one's bike while doing a loop in a larger park, without traffic around.

Blindness ~ Jose Saramego

I finished this last month ant it is a fantastic book. Saramego writes differently than anything you will ever have read before and it works well. He got the Nobel Prize for Literature recently, but it is not a heavy or hard read, it flows nicely.


The Sound and the Fury ~ William Faulkner

This is a pretty heavy read compared to Blindness but it is excellent and Faulkner is great at providing the reader with some fantastic imagery. I just started it but it is very good so far, however I do find that I am reading at a slower pace due to some of the dense language that Faulkner uses. It is not a light, summer novel, that is for sure.

Making my way through Catch-22 right now. Simultaneously trying to read A Clockwork Orange, but Catch-22 sucked me in and it's all I've been reading the last couple of weeks.

Recently read recommendations: The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food, God is Not Great.

Not reading, but my latest diversion is Youtubing for old film and newer interviews with Larry Bertleman. Give it a try and tell me if I am crazy.

- The Social History of the Machine Gun - John Ellis. Explores the social and cultural significance of 20th century advances in weapons technology.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex - Various. Activists of all stripes critically rethink the status quo surrounding 501(c)(3) organizations and the long-term consequences generated by such an organizational model (e.g. How does the 501(c)(3) model allow the state to co-opt political movements?) Working for a university non-profit, I can woefully identify with a lot of this material.
- American Dreams: Lost and Found - Studs Terkel. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and oral historian Studs Terkel talks to people from all walks of life about their dreams: what they are, what they were, and how they changed.

Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings -Descartes
Republic-Plato
Flannery O'Connor The Complete Stories-O'Connor
Fear and Trembling-Kierkegaard
The God Delusion-Dawkins
Sophie's World- Gaarder

Yup. Philosophy is great.

-Powers

I read this not too long ago. I'm interested in reading Seeing, which is something of a followup to Blindness

Giles Goat-Boy. Do I sound smart yet?

Yes, yes it is. :)

You should check out Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell. I majored in philosophy in college because of this book!

Ohhh, if you want a Bertrand Russell fix, I might recommend two collections of essays: _In Praise of Idleness_ and _Satan in the Suburbs_. Both are almost as good as their titles.

jim

p.s., no takers on Bertleman?

Yup. Although...reading Dawkins has caused me to dislike Russell but reading Dawkins has also made me dislike Dawkins. I'll let you imagine why.

-Powers

Ah yes, where he argues in favor of the 20 hour work week. Good stuff. Haven't read Satan in the Suburbs, though.

Currently reading Martin Eden by Jack London.

Next on the list:
-The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
-Answered Prayers by Truman Capote
-As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
-Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis
-Birds Without Wings by Louis De Bernieres

Just finished The New Orleans Voodoo Tarot and am starting Magic Island, written in the twenties about a white guy's life in Haiti and subsequent intro into vodou.
d

Country of Exiles William Leech

Poetics of Place Gaston Bachelard
Honestly one of the most gorgeous books I have ever read.

Between Good and Evil Rudiger Safranski

Sandra Boynton's Board Books (with my three year old!)


BTW: We read O'Connor's "The Displaced Person" in a class I teach. I dig her work.

I also am a philosophy student, but one of those phenomenologists. Although I do have a hefty Russell shelf I hope to look into this year.

What I am and will be reading
 

The Trouble with Diversity: How we learned to love identity and ignore inequality (Walter Benn Michaels)

Soon I will begin Don Quijote, by Miguel de Cervantes. I plan to attempt to finish it. ;)

Then you should recognize who my avatar is!

jim

Any of you guys on GoodReads?

i loved this book. have you looked at the sequel to it "seeing"? i hear its good as well

currently reading
Foe
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Something Wicked This Way Comes

i'm on goodreads. i have some work there too.

I didn't like Seeing much at all. Maybe it was a different translator, but it lacked the elegance of Blindness.

Genesis in Space and Time by Francis Schaeffer
Ethics by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
and I'm still hammering away at The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam
Also I'm about to start some book about economic hitmen that my stepdad wanted me to read.

Everyone Poops, by Taro Gomi.